My View: Medicare can be saved through bipartisan consensus

Wednesday

Oct 3, 2012 at 2:00 AM

In 2010, I retired from the United States Army after 24 years of service. Life in the Army had taken us around the world, and it was a privilege to serve. We moved back to Kinderhook, around the corner from where I grew up and my mom still lives.

Chris Gibson

In 2010, I retired from the United States Army after 24 years of service. Life in the Army had taken us around the world, and it was a privilege to serve. We moved back to Kinderhook, around the corner from where I grew up and my mom still lives.

She is 75 years old. Since we lost my dad four years ago, she has lived on her own — relying on a small union pension from my dad, Social Security and Medicare — just like so many other seniors across New York.

Medicare is a promise made to her and to every American. My mom relies on this promise every day. However, we've reached a point when the fulfillment of this commitment is in jeopardy. The Medicare trustees — those charged with protecting the program — predict the Hospital Trust Fund will be bankrupt by 2024.

As we consider options to save Medicare, I will never support changing the benefits current recipients receive. At the same time, we have an obligation to ensure younger Americans can someday realize this promise. Therefore, I am willing to seriously consider any comprehensive, bipartisan proposal to save Medicare from bankruptcy and strengthen it for future generations.

To date I have supported two concepts as a starting point. Last year, I supported a concept that, beginning no earlier than 2023, future seniors — those now 54 and younger — could choose among a variety of federally guaranteed private plans. To participate, each plan would be required to offer a certain standard of care and coverage to every senior.

The concept protects lower-income seniors and the chronically ill by giving them a higher subsidy. The premium would be paid directly from Medicare to the insurer; it is not a "voucher" program that would hand seniors a check that could be exploited by bad actors offering fraudulent coverage. The recent bipartisan update to this concept allows future seniors to stay on traditional Medicare or pick a private plan, with Medicare paying the full cost of at least two options for every senior.

Although some have made much of this idea politically, private plans providing Medicare services are already available. More than 25 percent of participants have private insurance through Medicare Advantage now, where enrollment is up and costs are down. Expanding this concept has promise.

This year, I voted for a second concept to help save Medicare. The bipartisan budget (called "Cooper-LaTourette" and based on President Obama's Simpson-Bowles Commission) brought together Republicans and Democrats to support a concept for Medicare that employs an accountable care approach, broader access to discount drugs, and measures to combat fraud, waste and abuse. While the effort fell far short of a majority vote, it is this concept of building a bipartisan consensus that must be utilized moving forward.

In both proposals, more work must be done. Details need to be debated and new ideas offered. Republicans and Democrats must work together, just as Sen. Joe Lieberman and Republican Sen. Tom Coburn did when they put forth their own proposal. It was Lieberman who said, "The truth is that we cannot save Medicare as we know it. We can save Medicare only if we change it."

Simply refusing to consider bipartisan solutions or choosing to do nothing while falsely attacking those working to solve this crisis is not leadership. We owe current seniors fidelity after all they did for us. Future generations are counting on us, too. After all, they are paying into the program now.

This is a country that has proven we can do hard things. By working together, we will get this done.

Rep. Chris Gibson of the Village of Kinderhook represents the 20th Congressional District. He is running for re-election in the new 19th Congressional District, which includes all of Ulster and Sullivan counties, part of Dutchess County, and all or part of eight other counties in the Hudson Valley/Catskill region.